When infusion, blood transfusion, or artificial dialysis is performed, liquid such as a liquid medicine and blood is fed into the body through an infusion line provided with a medical tube. A connector is disposed on such an infusion line, and a member, such as another infusion line and various medical devices, can be connected to the connector to join liquid such as another liquid medicine to liquid flowing inside the tube.
As such a connector, there is known a connector having a structure that includes a connector main body having a flow path, a connection opening which is formed on the connector main body and connected to a midway part of the flow path, and a disc-like valve body which is formed of an elastic body such as rubber and attached to the connection opening as described, for example, in JP 2010-167202 A. In a connector described in JP 2010-167202 A, a valve body is arranged on the tip of a cylindrical section which forms a connection opening and held by a cap (fixation member) together with the cylindrical section. A slit is formed on the valve body. A male connector disposed on a member to be connected is inserted into the slit to thereby connect the member to the connection opening.
In the above conventional connector, an annular projection which surrounds the slit is integrally formed with the bottom face of the valve body to prevent the valve body from splitting from both ends in the longitudinal direction of the slit when a male connector is inserted.
However, in the conventional connector, the outer diameter dimension of the annular projection is set smaller than the inner diameter dimension of the cylindrical section to form a gap between the outer peripheral face of the annular projection and the inner peripheral face of the cylindrical section to improve the insertability of the male connector into the valve body. Thus, when the valve body is attached to the tip of the cylindrical section in the manufacturing process of the connector, the valve body is in an unstable state that easily causes position shift in the radial direction with respect to the cylindrical section. Thus, the operability is low.
On the other hand, the valve body can be positioned in the radial direction by the annular projection and thereby stably attached to the cylindrical section by setting the outer diameter dimension of the annular projection of the valve body substantially equal to the inner diameter dimension of the connection opening of a holder. However, in such a configuration, since the outer peripheral face of the annular projection abuts against the inner peripheral face of the cylindrical section, it becomes difficult for the valve body to elastically deform. Accordingly, the insertability of the male connector is deteriorated.